Ethnoarchaeology
Further Reading
HALL, J.M. 2002. Hellenicity. Between ethnicity and
culture. Chicago and London: The University of
Chicago Press.
HARRISON, T. (ed.) 2001. Greeks and barbarians. London
and New York: Routledge.
JONES, C.P. 1999. Kinship diplomacy in the ancient world.
Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.
LAURENCE, R. & J. BERRY. (ed.) 2001. Cultural identity in
the Roman Empire. London and New York: Routledge.
LUCY, S. 2005. Ethnic and cultural identities, in
M. Diaz-Andreu, S. Lucy, S. Babic and D.N. Edwards
(ed.) The archaeology of identity: approaches to
gender, age, status, ethnicity and religion: 86–109.
London and New York: Routledge.
MALKIN, I. (ed.) 2001. Ancient perceptions of Greek
ethnicity. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.
MATTINGLY, D.M. 2011. Imperialism, power and identity:
experiencing the Roman Empire. Princeton, NJ.
MITCHELL, S. & G. GREATREX. (ed.) 2000. Ethnicity and
culture in late antiquity. London: Duckworth.
ZACHARIA, K. (ed.) 2008. Hellenisms: culture, identity, and
ethnicity from antiquity to modernity. Aldershot:
Ashgate.
Ethnoarchaeology
Gustavo G. Politis
Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, CONICET-
INCUAPA UNICEN, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Introduction
Ethnoarchaeology is a subdiscipline of anthropol-
ogy placed in what Binford called actualistic stud-
ies (see also the entry on “▶ Taphonomy:
Definition”). Ethnoarchaeology is differentiated
from other actualistic studies in that it includes
the systematic observation of living societies and
from other types of ethnography through its
explicit focus on the intention to identify the
archaeological – material – implications of
human behavior. During the last 40 years, archae-
ologists have carried out fieldwork in traditional
societies to help answer certain questions regarding
the interpretation of the archaeological record and
to develop and refine analogies. This research strat-
egy has been labeled as ethnoarchaeology, and it
transformed in one of the main sources of
2523 E
analogies. Analogy can be broadly defined as the
transferal of information from one object or phe-
nomenon to another based on certain relations of
compatibility between them. Although the use of
analogical reasoning in archaeology has been sub-
ject of debates, it is a current consensus that it is
necessary in every step of the investigation (for
a reborn debate about this subject, see Ravn
2011). In the framework of analogical argumenta-
tion, ethnoarchaeology provided information from
E
a source better known as the living societies in
order to transfer this information to another less
known subject – the extinct societies.
Definition
There are many definitions of the subdiscipline of
ethnoarchaeology, but it can simply and basically
be summarized as the acquisition of original eth-
nographic data to help the archaeological inter-
pretation. There are a wide range of synonyms
such as “action archaeology,” “living archaeol-
ogy,” “archaeoethnography,” and “ethnographic
archaeology.” It can also be defined as the study
of the relationship between human behavior and
its archaeological consequences in the present; it
is concern with the investigation of material cul-
ture and the built environment among living peo-
ple in relation with the process which effect and
affect their conversion to archaeological context
(Lane 2006: 402). Among the variety of defini-
tions and characteristics of ethnoarchaeology,
one of the most comprehensive is the one pro-
vided by B. Sillar, “the study of how material
culture is produced, used and deposited by con-
temporary societies in relation to the wider social,
ideological, economic, environmental and/or
technical aspects of the society concerned, and
with specific reference to the problems of
interpreting archaeological material” (Sillar
2000: 6). The use and application to the archaeo-
logical record of published ethnographic data
(what is usually called ethnographic parallels) is
not considered ethnoarchaeology, neither is the
study of ethnographic collection from Museum
took on for archaeological interpretations in mind
(David & Kramer 2001: 11).
E 2524
Ethnoarchaeology has been looked upon with
a degree of mistrust due to the difficulties that
exist in extrapolating from contemporary infor-
mation to past societies, starting with the fact that
the epistemological bases of how to conduct such
extrapolations are not sufficiently developed.
This has generated doubts and criticism of ana-
logical reasoning. Currently, in despite certain
inherent and difficult-to-resolve problem, the
great majority of archaeologists recognize the
usefulness of analogical arguments in the process
of interpretation or explanation of the archaeo-
logical record and consider them as indispensable
tools (David & Kramer 2001; Ravn 2011).
Another point that has generated mistrust is
that to a greater or lesser degree, present-day
indigenous societies – the source of analogies –
have all had contact with western society and are
integrated in one form or another into the process
of “globalization.” It has been proposed, conse-
quently, that present-day societies cannot serve
as analogical references for past societies because
most – if not all – of them are a product of the
postcolonial impact (for the Pacific archaeology,
see critics in Spriggs 2008). This criticism, how-
ever, is unjustified and basically refers to the bad
use of analogy rather to the analogy as way of
approaching the study of the past societies.
Ethnoarchaeological research operates under the
principles of analogical reasoning, and therefore
the two elements of analogy (the source and the
subject) need not be the same (in the contrary
case analogical reasoning would not be neces-
sary), but rather there should be certain condi-
tions of comparability between terms. Analogy’s
strength does not lie in the degree of similarity
between source (in this case, the present-day
society) and subject (the past society as perceived
through the archaeological record), but rather in
the logical structure of the argument and the
similarity between the terms of the relation.
Obviously, the greater the similarity between
source and subject, the greater the potential of
the analogical argument, but the degree of simi-
larity alone in no way guarantees the strength of
the argument or the veracity of the statements.
Moreover, it is recognized that the power of
a given analogy does not depend upon the
Ethnoarchaeology
delimitation of which traditional or “pristine”
group is the source of the analogy, but rather
upon its logical structure and the conditions of
comparability.
As such, the subdiscipline attempts to formu-
late models that permit the better understanding
of the cultural patterns of human societies,
both in the present and the past. Essentially,
ethnoarchaeology is a form of ethnography that
takes into consideration aspects and relationships
not approached in detail by traditional ethnogra-
phies; in some way, it is a look of contemporary
societies with archaeological eyes and with
archaeological questions in mind.
Historical Background
The attempt to use ethnographic information to
interpret the archaeological record is neither new
nor the exclusive domain of ethnoarchaeology. In
the past, this use was named “ethnographic par-
allel,” a method of using already existing ethno-
graphic data, without defining criterion and
limitation for this use and projecting or imposing
it into a given archaeological case. What was new
was that ethnoarchaeological information has
been obtained by archaeologists themselves
with the central objective of aiding comprehen-
sion of the archaeological record. At the same
time, it was a great effort to make explicit the
observed variables and the context of these obser-
vations. These facts make the analogical reason-
ing more viable and the results more accurate.
Although the term ethnoarchaeology was used
for the first time in the 1900 by Jesse Fewkes in
relation with the use of local knowledge of the
North American Indians (David & Kramer 2001:
6), it was in the 1960s, upon the advent of
processual archaeology, that archaeologists became
interested in ethnographic analogy in a systematic
way, realizing at the same time that ethnographers
were not given proper attention to the study of
material culture. In these early years, archaeolo-
gists such M. R. Kleindiest and Patty Jo Watson
among the Pueblo Indians in the 1950s, Robert
Asher among the Seri Indian of Mexico, and Peter
White in the Highlands of New Guinea (Fig. 1)
Ethnoarchaeology 2525 E
Ethnoarchaeology,
Fig. 1 J. Peter White
taking notes during pioneer
ethnoarchaeological
research in 1964 when he
was a graduate student
working in Legaiyu village,
Asaro Valley, Eastern
Highlands of New Guinea.
The people would identify
themselves as Gahuku-
Gama. In the picture,
bamboo arrows are being E
made (Photo courtesy of J.
Peter White)

Ethnoarchaeology,
Fig. 2 Lewis Binford and
research team during field
work among the Nunamiut
(Photo from the 1971 field
season at Tulugak Lake,
Alaska). Left to right:
Richard Workman, Charles
Amsden, Don Campbell,
and Lewis Binford. On the
back of the original, there is
a more recent note in
Binford’s writing
identifying it as Tulugak
Lake Alaska 1971, “It
snowed for 26 days” (Photo
courtesy of Amber
Johnson)

generated the first ethnographic set of data
obtained with the specific purpose to aid the inter-
pretation of the archaeological record.
Subsequently, Lewis Binford developed his
ethnoarchaeological approach theoretically and
conceptually in Nunamiut Ethnoarchaeology
(Binford 1978), based on his research among
the Nunamiut people in Alaska (Fig. 2). These
contributions, together with Richard Gould
(1980), who also performed pioneer work in the
Western Desert in Australia, and John Yellen
(1977) among the Kalahari Kung, established
the foundations of ethnoarchaeology within the
processual paradigm and transformed the
subdiscipline into one of the most important pro-
ducers of the models to interpret the archaeolog-
ical record of the past societies.
Contemporary ethnoarchaeology emerged as
a direct result of developing actualistic studies
and optimism generated by the potential for
such studies to explain the archaeological record
everywhere. It was also an outcome of the need to
construct middle-range theory in order to bridge
the gap between the dynamics of the living
E 2526
systems and the static of the archaeological
record. Consequently, from the late 1970s, and
especially during the 1980s, specific studies of
living traditional societies by archaeologists were
carried on in several parts of the world, such as
Western Iran, Tanzania, the Kalahari Desert,
India, and the Andes. Among them, some long-
term, multistage enterprises, such as the Kalinga
Project in the Philippines directed by William
Longacre, the Coxoh Ethnoarchaeological Pro-
ject in the Maya Highlands in Mexico conducted
by Brian Hyden, the Mandara Project in Camer-
oon and Nigeria headed by Nicholas David, and
the research carried by Valentine Roux and col-
laborators in Uttam Nagar and Haryana in India,
deserved mention. As such, a new approach was
developed – the search for general principles that
connected human behavior to material culture
and the obtaining of conclusions that did not
depend exclusively on sociocultural anthropolog-
ical theory.
The initial optimism of processual archaeol-
ogy in the belief that human behavior was subject
to laws (more or less similar to those of biology)
pervaded ethnoarchaeology and oriented its con-
ceptual development in the 1970s. During these
early years, there was also an underlying convic-
tion that universal laws could be generated that
related human behavior to material remains. In
fact, archaeologist Michael Schiffer presumed
that, together with experimental archaeology,
ethnoarchaeology would be the principal source
for the production of these laws. Consequently,
between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s,
a great attention was given to indentify and
describe the process that contributes to the for-
mation of the archaeological deposits (i.e., bone
breaking and discard, use of domestic space,
camp construction, and abandonment) and in the
mechanisms and the physical procedures related
to the production of different kind of artifacts
(specially pottery and lithic tools) (Lane 2006).
The research done by Susan Kent (1984) in the
USA and of James O’Connell (1987) in Australia
are good examples of the mainstream of
ethnoarchaeology in those times. In this period,
a few local archaeologists, such as Irmhld Wüst
or Tom Miller Jr., started ethnoarchaeological
Ethnoarchaeology
projects in South America (Politis 2004),
although their opened research has been
overlooked.
In the 1980s and 1990s, ethnoarchaeology
broadened its focus and began to be included
within a post-processual agenda as well. The
leader of this renovation was Ian Hodder, who,
after his vital ethnoarchaeological experience in
the late 1970s in Kenya in the Lake Baringo area,
developed a new theoretical approach (Hodder
1982). The new paradigm emphasized reflexivity
and hermeneutics and was based in Bourdieu’s
theory of practice, all of which permeated the
post-processual ethnoarchaeology fieldwork,
and data collection took a more emic character
(as opposite of the externalism and quantitative
methodology which characterized the processual
ethnoarchaeology) and resulted in a greater effort
to know the meaning of the material culture.
From within post-processualism, the range of
interests that ethnoarchaeology incorporated
was expanded, especially as it widened its focus
beyond techno-economic aspects – which domi-
nated the previous years – to understanding
greater levels of complexity, attempting to
discern material correlates of the social and ide-
ational. Principally, this new current reconcep-
tualized material culture, seeking to determine
the multiple dimensions in which it operates. In
this sense, certain aspects are emphasized that
were barely touched upon in previous research,
such as symbolism and the study of non-
utilitarian dimensions of material culture within
society. Ethnicity, gender, style, power, resis-
tance, and so on are among the new themes
boarded by this new trend.
In parallel with these main trends, basically
from Anglo-Saxon origins, there is a Franco-
phone ethnoarchaeology which has its anteced-
ents in the classic French ethnographic studies in
material culture (Gonzalez Ruibal 2003: 21-22).
This trend is oriented toward the identification of
technological procedure (pottery, metallurgy,
etc.) paying attention to the broader social con-
text and to the learning processes.
Pioneer research in this trend was made
by Allan Gallay and E. Huysecom (1989) in
West Africa in relation to pottery technology.
Ethnoarchaeology
Ethnoarchaeology,
Fig. 3 The research team
directed by Victor
Fernandez Martinez is
interviewing some Mao
people (slash
agriculturalists of
Ethiopia). In the picture,
Alfredo Gonzalez Ruibal
and Derrib Worku are
sitting on the fiber mat
talking with the Mao in
2007 (Photo courtesy of
Álvaro Falquina Aparicio)
Pierre Lemonier and Olivier Gosselain, both
representants of the technique et culture school,
have made significant contributions, specially
the former who described and contributed to
understand the chaine operatoire. Also, Valen-
tine Roux (2007), with a more positivist and
nomothetical approach (which is in accord with
the French logicism), has been studying ceramic
and bead production in India giving special atten-
tion to the learning and specialization process.
She and Daniela Corbetta, a cognitive psycholo-
gist, have established transcultural standards in
terms of how a particular kind of specialization
can be defined and relating these standards to
material signatures (David & Kramer 2001:
230). The ethnoarchaeological studies of Anne-
Marie and Pierre Petrequin have also made sig-
nificant contributions; their research has been
done in relation to village construction around
the Lake Nokoué in Benin and later on in East
and Central Irina Jaya (Indonesia) where they
studied, among other relevant themes, the chaine
operatoire of two ancient traditions of ground-
polished stone tools.
Finally, an emergent ethnoarchaeological
Spanish tradition should be mentioned, although
it does not have yet the impact of the previous
ones. This tradition is formed by several different
2527 E
E
lines. One is developed by the team directed by
Victor Fernandez Martı́nez in Ethiopia (Fig. 3),
which is framed in the critical theory; the
research on the abandoned rural housed in Galicia
done by González Ruibal (2003) could be
included in this line. The ethnoarchaeological
project carried out by Almudena Hernando
among the Q´eqchı́ in Guatemala is also part of
this tradition although following an original
poststructuralist approach (see below).
Current Debates and Future Directions
Currently, ethnoarchaeological studies had mul-
tiplied and encompassed the analysis of all types
of societies, and in all the major regions of the
world, long-term ethnoarchaeological projects
were initiated. In recent years, ethnoarch-
aeological studies have been carried out among
all kinds of societies in the Americas, Africa,
Asia and Oceania and in some cases by
non-western researcher (specially by Africans).
Furthermore, these studies have not been limited
to indigenous groups but have also included
Creole peoples, peasants, and western urban
societies. For some authors, such as Alfredo
Gonzalez Ruibal, the study of western societies
E 2528 Ethnoarchaeology

Ethnoarchaeology,
Fig. 4 A couple of Hotı̈
Indians visiting the
ethnoarchaeologists’ camp
and drinking their
beverages. High Parucito
River, Estado Amazonas,
Venezuela, 2002 fieldwork
(Photo by Gustavo Politis)

should include among other subdiscipline –

detached from ethnoarchaeology – named
“archaeology of the present.”
During the 1990s and especially in the 2000s,
ethnoarchaeology began to be developed by local
researchers in many regions of the world. This
includes Latin America, where since the 1990s
several ethnoarchaeological projects, basically
by Brazilians and Argentineans, are in process
(see review in Politis 2004) (Fig. 4). Main areas
of interest in the Andes (following the work of
George Miller) are pastoralist societies and
ceramic production, while in the tropical low-
lands, the two main subjects are hunter-gatherers
(Fig. 5) and riverine village horticulturalists, such
as the Guaranı́.
Hunter-gatherers have been an important
focus from the beginning of systematic
ethnoarchaeological research (Yellen 1977;
Binford 1978; Gould 1980). More recently,
these societies have been approached from
a variety of theoretical frameworks, from those
linked with behavioral ecology (see recent review
in Bird & O’Connell (2006)) to others related to
historical ecology (i.e., Politis 2007) or to Ethnoarchaeology, Fig. 5 A Hotı̈ hunter displaying his
weapons (blowpipes, darts, and spears) to be recorded by
nonmaterialistic issues such as gender and sym-
an ethnoarchaeologists. High Parucito River, Estado Ama-
bolic power (i.e., Hernando et al. 2011, see also zonas, Venezuela, 2002 fieldwork (Photo by Gustavo
review in Lane 2006) (Fig. 6). Paradoxically, as Politis)
Ethnoarchaeology
Ethnoarchaeology, Fig. 6 Alfredo González Ruibal
taking notes during an Awá night ritual in the 2008 field-
work. Juritı́ village, Brazil (Photo courtesy of Almudena
Hernando)
interest grows in these studies and their contribu-
tions are valued as means of archaeological infer-
ence, “traditional” societies are diminishing,
especially and dramatically hunter-gatherers,
and the range of variation of analogous referents
is consequently reduced. Consequently, the west-
ernization of indigenous societies notably dimin-
ishes the availability of contemporary analogous
referents that reflect some of the conditions of
past societies or that are comparable in some way.
Ethnoarchaeology has been active in the more
general anthropological goal of understanding
and exploring other forms of thought or cosmol-
ogies, which is of great importance also to
archaeology (Fig. 6). Within this field, patterns
of rationality and logical structures are looked
for that differs from western patterns. This kind
of research, basically proposed by Spanish
2529 E
archaeologist Almudena Hernando, is framed
within post-structuralism. In this use of
ethnoarchaeology, the correlation with material
culture is secondary to the attempt to understand
alternative cosmovisions and different logics
independently of their material correlates. Obvi-
ously, one is not attempting to understand in
depth extinct norms of thought, but rather detect
keys to its functioning and discern how and which
ideological and social factors (as well as techno-
E
economic) acted on the configuration of the mate-
rial record, where this is possible.
In spite of same pessimist forecasts and
against the argument that ethnoarchaeology has
little impact on “real archaeology” (see discus-
sion in Skibo 2009), the subdiscipline is increas-
ingly influencing the archaeological reasoning.
More and more, archaeologists are using the
results of ethnoarchaeological research to gener-
ate hypothesis and to test the validity of their
assumptions. The reduction of traditional socie-
ties, and/or modes of life, is compensated with
the redirection of the ethnoarchaeological study
toward segments or subgroups of contemporary
western societies. However, the methodological
procedure to integrate this new set of results into
the interpretation of the archaeological record
still needs to be properly developed. There is
methodological gap in the analogical reasoning
that needs to be covered.
As a corollary, it should be noted that one of
the main contributions of ethnoarchaeology is the
mitigation of the ethnocentrism that permeates
the archaeological view of the people in the past
and the interpretation of the long-term human
processes. Ethnoarchaeology, with it particular
look upon contemporary societies, both tradi-
tional and western, is making a great input not
only in the understanding of human behavior but
also in archaeological theory building.
Cross-References
▶ Binford, Lewis R. (Theory)
▶ Ethnoarchaeology: Approaches to Fieldwork
E 2530
▶ Ethnoarchaeology: Building Frames of
Reference for Research
▶ Hodder, Ian (Theory)
▶ Hunter-Gatherers, Archaeology of
▶ Hypothesis Testing in Archaeological Theory
▶ Indigenous Knowledge and Traditional
Knowledge
▶ Middle-Range Theory in Archaeology
▶ Post-Processual Archaeology
▶ Processualism in Archaeological Theory
References
BINFORD, L. 1978. Nunamiut ethnoarchaeology. New
York: Academic Press.
BIRD, D. & J. O’CONNELL. 2006. Behavioral ecology and
archaeology. Journal of Archaeological Research 14:
143-88.
DAVID, N & C. KRAMER. 2001. Ethnoarchaeology in
action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
GALLAY, A. & E. HUYSECOM. 1989. Ethnoarchéologie
africaine (Documents du Département d’Anthropologie
et d’Écologie 14). Genève: Université de Genève.
GONZÁLEZ RUIBAL, A. 2003. La experiencia del otro. Una
introducción a la etnoarqueologı́a. Madrid: Editorial
Akal.
GOULD, R. 1980. Living archaeology. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
HERNANDO, A., G. POLITIS, A. GONZÁLEZ -RUIBAL & E.
BESERRA COHELO. 2011. Gender, power and mobility
among the Awá-Guajá (Maranhão, Brazil). Journal of
Anthropological Research 67(2): 189-211.
HODDER, I. (ed.) 1982. Symbols in actions: ethnoarch-
aeological studies of material culture. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
KENT, S. 1984. Analyzing activity areas. Alburquerque:
University of New Mexico.
O’CONNELL, J. F. 1987. Alyawara site structure and its archae-
ological implications. American Antiquity 52: 74-108.
POLITIS, G. 2004. Tendencias de la etnoarqueologia en
América Latina, in G. Politis & R. D. Peretti (ed.)
Teorı́a Arqueológica en América del Sur: 85-117.
Olavarrı́a: Serie Teórica INCUAPA.
RAVN, M. 2011. Ethnographic analogy from the Pacific:
just as analogy as any other analogy. World Archaeol-
ogy 43(4): 716-25.
SKIBO, J. 2009. Archaeological theory and snake-oil ped-
dling. The role of ethnoarchaeology in archaeology.
Ethnoarchaeology 1(1): 27-55.
ROUX, V. 2007. Ethnoarchaeology, a non-historical science
of reference necessary for interpreting the past. Journal
of Archaeological Method and Theory 14(2): 153-78.
SILLAR, B. 2000. Shaping culture: making pots and
constructing households: an ethnoarchaeology study
Ethnoarchaeology: Approaches to Fieldwork
of pottery production, trade and use in the Andes
(BAR International series 883). Oxford: Archaeopress.
SPRIGGS, M. 2008. Ethnoarchaeological parallels and the
denial of history. World Archaeology 40(4): 538-52.
YELLEN, J.E. 1977. Archaeological approaches to the pre-
sent. New York: Academic Press.
Further Reading
HODDER, I. (ed.) 1986 Reading the past: current
approaches to interpretation in archaeology.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
LANE, P. 2006. Present to past. Ethnoarchaeology, in C.
Tilley, W. Keane, S. Kuechler, M. Rowlands & P.
Spyer (ed.) Handbook of material culture: 402-24.
London: Sage Publications Ltd.
POLITIS, G. 2007. Nukak. Ethnoarchaeology of an Amazo-
nian people (University College London Institute of
Archaeology Publications). Walnut Creek: Left Coast
Press.
Ethnoarchaeology: Approaches to
Fieldwork
Gustavo G. Politis
Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, CONICET-
INCUAPA UNICEN, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Introduction
Field methods of ethnoarchaeology are based on
those of ethnography, but because of the type of
information that is sought, there are some record
types that are more specific to archaeology. In
other words, fieldwork in ethnoarchaeology is
also based on participant observation in living
societies, with an attitude of minimal interference
in the community under study and a clear
research design. However, little has been
written and reflected on ethnoarchaeological
fieldwork (for exceptions see David & Kramer
2001: 63-90), and in general it is not clearly
specified in the reports. There are three defining
elements of ethnoarchaeology that have
implications in their field methods: the study of
a living culture, with reference to the material
derivatives of human behavior, and (when it is in
traditional society) the postcolonial context.
Ethnoarchaeology: Approaches to Fieldwork
Ethnoarchaeology:
Approaches to
Fieldwork, Fig. 1 J. Peter
White in 1964 in the
Legaiyu village, Asaro
Valley Eastern Highlands,
New Guinea: ethnicity is
identified as Gahuku-
Gama. White had asked the
Indians to carve some
nucleus to make some
observations controlling
some variables (Photo
courtesy of J. Peter White)
Key Issues/Current Debates/Future
Directions/Examples
The ethnoarchaeological fieldwork has some
peculiarities. First, the overall goals are more lim-
ited than those of classical ethnography, since they
are usually related to material culture, with the
settlement and with the exploitation of the envi-
ronment and landscape changes. This makes
ethnoarchaeological work generally more specific
and shorter than those of classical ethnography
(although there are exceptions like the works of
John Yellen (1977) among the Kung or those of
Russell Greaves (2006) among the Pumé).
Although post-processual ethnoarchaeology –
more hermeneutic – has looked for understanding
the cultural context of production of material cul-
ture and has paid more attention to emic category,
this has not resulted in a substantial increase in the
duration of fieldwork campaigns.
Since ethnoarchaeologists study living
cultures with archaeological eyes, they record
data such as places for garbage disposal, marks
and breaks on a bone and its dispersion in domes-
tic spaces and in the landscape, operational
chains and sequence of artifact production,
plant, and location of households and villages
(Fig. 1). Thus, ethnoarchaeologists draw plans,
analyze bones, record artifacts, and make maps
2531 E
E
with the skills that are specific to archaeology.
Ethnoarchaeological work often includes the
collection of objects and debris, such as faunal
remains, the debris of a sequence of stone flaking,
or broken pottery sherds, for further study in the
laboratory, following analytical techniques from
archaeology or taphonomy (see, e.g., Lupo &
O’Connell 1987, 2002). Likewise, information
is often quantified, especially in terms of size,
distance, weight, and time (see, e.g., the study
of Bird et al., 2009, on daily foraging trips and
hunting strategies of the Martu). With the advent of
post-processual ethnoarchaeology, there has been
a greater emphasis on understanding the context of
material cultural. The article on pottery decoration
by David et al. (1988) is a good example of this
trend. Moreover, from post-processualism
onwards, a more emic perspective has been devel-
oped, and efforts have been put into trying to
understand how the same people conceptualized
and thought about their objects and their behavior
and to understand its causes and motivations.
To simplify something much more complex, it
is important to differentiate ethnoarchaeological
observations from ethnoarchaeological projects.
The former generally occur during a campaign of
archaeological fieldwork. Observations made on
these occasions are very useful in interpreting
a specific context, but cannot always elucidate
E 2532
more complex systems or generate more general
models. These observations are also frequent
producers of “cautionary tales,” which help mit-
igate the ethnocentrism of archaeologists and
overthrow assumptions based solely on common
sense. Furthermore, ethnoarchaeological projects
have an agenda and specific designs and seek to
transcend the regional application; generally they
seek to create general models which allow for the
connection between human behavior and
material culture (the classic studies of Binford,
1978, on Nunamiut are a good example of this;
see also discussion in Roux 2007) or for
understanding the meaning of material
production within its social and cultural context
(see, e.g., Gosselain 2000).
There are two main types of ethnoarch-
aeological projects. Those incorporated within
archaeological projects, and those undertaken
on their own account, without direct links to
local archaeological research (although these
may have originally served as inspiration).
Carol Kramer’s study (1982) on a vernacular
architecture of Iran and Warren DeBoer work
(1974) on the pottery from Peru Conibo are
classic examples of the former. Ethnoarch-
aeological studies on Pumé conducted by
Greaves (2006) or Kelly (2006) and collaborators
of Mikea of Madagascar exemplify the second
type. Although less frequent, ethnoarch-
aeological research can also be conducted within
the framework of ethnographic/social anthropol-
ogy projects. The famous work of John Yellen
among the Kung is one of the exceptions, as it
was done as part of the Harvard University
Bushman Studies project, led by Richard Lee
and Irven DeVore.
In general the methods and techniques of data
record in ethnoarchaeology have three variants.
The first is the record of the activities as they
happen, with special attention to the materials
derived from them and the social and ideational
framework within which they occur (see, e.g.,
Politis 2007). This is the ideal case and should
be the most successful for generating analog
models. The second variant is when the
ethnoarchaeologist requests the execution of spe-
cific activities in order to obtain certain types of
Ethnoarchaeology: Approaches to Fieldwork
information. This variant may allow for a better
control of observation, as in experimental archae-
ology, with the difference that the one holding the
experiment is the cultural “other.” This situation
is common, for example, when the researcher
wants to record the making of some artifacts
that are no longer made or that were not made
during the period of fieldwork. The weakness of
this second strategy is that it is more difficult to
frame the phenomenon in its original cultural
context (and so understand its causes and moti-
vations), since induction is applied by the
researcher. In both variants, ethnoarchaeologists
are making increasingly frequent use of film in
addition to graphic and sound recording (Fig. 2),
especially taking advantage of digital cameras
(Fig. 3).
The third variant uses previous knowledge
about the societies to make broader ethnoarch-
aeological models, spatially and temporally. In
this case the ethnoarchaeologist does not
“observe” anything but receives oral information
about some aspects of the behavior of people in
the past and their material implications. Models
of residential mobility among Nunamiut made by
Binford (1978) are good examples of this third
strategy as it incorporates the memory of
traditional territories of this people. In practice,
two or three of these variants are combined in the
field. In all three variants, key informants are also
used (Fig. 4).
Despite the relatively widespread belief that
ethnoarchaeologists also dig sites, this happens
rarely now. In general, ethnoarchaeologists
generate the models that serve as analogies for
human behavior, but are not primarily interested
in recovering what is left after a place was aban-
doned. The generation of “archaeological record”
is usually observed in real time during the
fieldwork and is the interface between the living
culture dynamic and static registration, which
focuses the ethnoarchaeologists. Thus, the
excavation of a site where observations of the
living culture have been made does not have
much relevance for ethnoarchaeology; the study
of differential preservation of the remains
belongs to the field of taphonomy and the study
of the natural processes of site formation.
Ethnoarchaeology: Approaches to Fieldwork 2533 E
Ethnoarchaeology:
Approaches to
Fieldwork, Fig. 2 J. Peter
White in 1973 in Horaile
parish, near Lake Kopiago,
and the local people are
Duna speakers. Picture
taken while they were
making the film (Photo
courtesy of J. Peter White)

Ethnoarchaeology:
Approaches to
Fieldwork, Fig. 3 Young
Awa browsing the digital
film machine, during night
filming of a Juriti village
ritual (Brazil), 2008 (Photo
courtesy of Almudena
Hernando and Alfredo
Gonzalez Ruibal)

The ethical aspect of fieldwork is crucial
(Hodder 1982: 39; Fewster 2001; Davis &
Kramer 2001: 84-90). The governing ethical
standards and good practice applied to general
anthropological research have first priority: this
includes full respect for the community and its
customs, minimal interference, and informed
consent. This last is sometimes difficult to obtain
in its entirety, due to both linguistic and cultural
differences. It is often difficult to explain the
ethnoarchaeologists’ passion for systematically
recording (sometimes obsessively) everyday
behaviors and conserving what the people studied
consider junk. This is of course related to the
degree of “Westernization” of the ethnic group
in question, but for many traditional societies, the
activities carried out by ethnoarchaeologists
remain incomprehensible: why pick up and put
in bags a lot of dirty bones which do not have any
meat? Why draw and map the sherds of broken
pottery? Full and real informed consent can be
obtained quite easily in some cases, but it is
unrealistic, for example, in the case of more
recently contacted communities such as the
E 2534
Ethnoarchaeology:
Approaches to
Fieldwork, Fig. 4 Lewis
Binford visiting Anaktuvuk
Pass in 1999. He is talking
to Johnny Rulland who was
his “brother” and one of his
primary informants (Photo
taken by Grant Spearman.
Courtesy of Amber
Johnson)
Colombian Amazon Nukak or the Upper Orinoco
Hotı̈. What it is obtained is the agreement for the
ethnoarchaeologist to accompany, join, and
“observe” in a particular way some people in
their everyday activities, but this by no means
implies that the observed are fully aware of
what the ethnoarchaeological research in ques-
tion means. This is an ethical dilemma that is hard
to solve.
Finally, the continual disruption of traditional
or preindustrial lifestyles, the growing processes
of ethnogenesis, and the steady advance of glob-
alization are leading to the demise of practices
which help observers interpret the past. Within
this orbit, ethnoarchaeology is reorienting its
strategies and objects of study, and some variants
of this new trend are turning to what has been
called the archaeology of the present (González
Ruibal 2009). This has led to a redesign of the
field methods that are closer to those of ethnog-
raphy, sociology, or what is known as studies of
material culture.
Cross-References
▶ Binford, Lewis R. (Theory)
▶ Ethnoarchaeology
Ethnoarchaeology: Approaches to Fieldwork
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BIRD, D.W., R. BLIEGE BIRD & B.F. CODDING. 2009. In
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DAVID, N. & C. KRAMER. 2001. Ethnoarchaeology in
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DEBOER, W. 1974. Ceramic longevity and archaeological
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Ethnoarchaeology: Building Frames
of Reference for Research
Pei-Lin Yu
National Park Service, University of Montana,
Missoula, MT, USA
Introduction and Definition
Ethnoarchaeology is a powerful strategy for
structuring archaeological research questions
that uses ethnographic information to make infer-
ences about the material residues of past human
activities. Ethnoarchaeology is not a theoretical
approach per se, so it can investigate research
questions generated from a wide variety of theo-
retical perspectives. Ethnoarchaeological scopes
and scales of research are expanding rapidly in
geography, chronology, method, and theoretical
stance, from variables conditioning the manufac-
ture of traditional technology to the evolution of
symbolic expression and ritual behaviors.
Ethnoarchaeologists are uniquely positioned to
construct frames of reference to aid archaeological
inquiry. In this entry, “frame of reference” is defined
as a research strategy that makes projections from
2535 E
a better-known domain of knowledge to a less-well-
known domain. Ethnoarchaeologists examine vari-
ation in characteristics of an independent, related
body of knowledge (ethnographic data) to generate
frames of reference for testing and refining research
about less well-known phenomena (the ways that
human activities are expressed in the archaeological
record and implications of the archaeological record
for past activities).
Ethnoarchaeology has been described as
E
a subset of actualistic archaeology, but unlike
experimental archaeology, which is conducted
under acultural, controlled laboratory conditions,
ethnoarchaeology documents and analyzes behav-
iors that are observed or described in ethnographic
settings. Unlike ethnographic analogy, which iden-
tifies similarities and infers similar causal mecha-
nisms, and the direct historical approach, which
imposes traits of present-day material culture
directly onto the archaeological record,
ethnoarchaeology usually takes the intermediate
step of developing frames of reference to investi-
gate the archaeological record. Human behavioral
ecology and biosocial anthropology also employ
real-time observations of human societies as means
to structure research problems but are more nar-
rowly concerned with biologically expressed evo-
lutionary aspects of human behavior (Fig. 1).
There is some overlap between
ethnoarchaeology and actualistic research strate-
gies, but ethnoarchaeology does have important
characteristics that define it as a separate
subdiscipline of archaeology: the most significant
being the conceptual linkage between the two
domains of ethnography and archaeology. This
entry begins with a summary of the history of
ethnoarchaeology (for a more detailed review,
see David & Kramer 2001) and moves on to
describe functions of ethnoarchaeology in vari-
ous arenas of method and theory; explore key
issues, current debates, and critiques; and discuss
future trends and opportunities.
Historical Background
The history of ethnoarchaeology can be summa-
rized in four main periods of growth, drawn